“Compare that against the East Coast. There, it’s completely different. They have a real winter in December and January. And they can have snow all the way until March,” he says.

But come April, the East Coast switches gear.

“They really switch out of it very quickly. So by the time they get into April, they can get 70s and 80s. And May is getting to be a nice month, and June — well, that’s real summer. But it’s not like that around here.”

Why so slow?

So what’s the difference? Why are we so slow to improve?

The answer, Mass says, is the Pacific Ocean.

“Upstream of the East Coast, they have all this land. It’s a continental area that warms up quickly. So temperatures start coming up very rapidly.

“But for us, we have this ocean. And this ocean doesn’t warm up very much at all; (it warms up) very, very slowly. The air’s coming up over the ocean,” says Mass.

So in sum, don’t expect any real warmth anytime soon. But the good news is things will dry up this weekend.

Weekend forecast: Drier with ‘considerable amount of sunshine’

“We’re expecting a generally dry weekend with temperatures slowly warming up, maybe around 50s,” says Mass, adding the showers will start to fade out late in the day Friday.

“And we should see considerable amount of sunshine,” he says.

The one exception is the coast, which will see some clouds and a chance of light showers on Saturday. By Sunday, though, the coast should be all clear.

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